Hawaii Five-O’s Anti-Gun Tirade

On the Monday’s broadcast of the long awaited remake of a popular 1970s era episode of Hawaii Five-O, one of the main characters went on a rant against “gun nuts” and the lack of both strict regulations and a pervasive, privacy-invading registration process. But later in the show the same character was apologetic over not having a warrant to review records of owners of post office boxes because it is an invasion of their right to privacy.

The episode, titled “Hookman,” is a remake of the 1973 fan favorite from the original Jack Lord series and featured a double amputee who lost his hands in the commission of a crime decades ago who then went on a campaign of revenge against members of the Hawaii Police Department that put him in jail.

But this year’s remake was not a carbon copy of the original as, unlike the 1973 episode, in this version there was time enough for one of the characters to go on a tirade against guns, gun laws and gun owners.

In the original episode, one of the clues left by the killer was a rifle with a golden plaque affixed to it bearing the name of the policeman slain by the killer. In the new one, however, the clue was a rifle shell casing with the name engraved on it. In the original, Jack Lord’s Officer McGarrett went to a plaque-maker’s shop to try and find out to whom the proprietor sold the item. In the remake, the team went to a local gun shop to try and chase down the shell casing. This alteration in the original script specifically set today’s character up for his anti-gun rant.

Five-O Officer Danny “Danno” Williams accompanied Officer McGarrett to the gun shop and, as McGarrett questioned the proprietor of the gun shop, Williams (Scott Caan) began to harass, dismiss, and ridicule the shop owner as a “gun nut.”

McGarrett (Alex O’Loughlin) asked the shop owner if he kept records of all the ammunition he sold and, of course, the shop owner said no. The fact is there are no regulations anywhere in the USA–continental or otherwise–for ammunition sales to be so thoroughly recorded. A real cop would know this so a real “McGarrett” would never have asked the question in the first place. But “real” wasn’t of interest here. The goal was to set up the Williams character to indulge an anti-gun tirade.

After the shop owner said he didn’t have the asked-for records and didn’t want to keep such records to add to the mountain of federal forms he already had to fill out, the Williams character snidely said, “why would we want that?” Why would we want to be able to have enough records to track “gun nuts,” he barked.

“Idiots with guns kill people,” Williams said and then gave his anti-Second Amendment pronouncement: “No guns no killing it’s that simple.”

Yeah. Simple.

Who cares about privacy of gun owners? And that Constitution? Bah!

Yet, a little later in the same episode, the same character was apologetic to the owner of a storefront P.O. Box rental shop about violating the privacy of owners of post office boxes when, without a warrant, his partner broke into a file box with addresses and names of renters trying to find the killer. That was apparently an invasion of privacy as far as “Danno” was concerned.

So, privacy and civil rights for post office box renters, but none for gun owners. Picking and choosing which rights they want to allow people to have, that’s the liberal way.

As noted, the new episode was a remake of the award-winning 1973 episode on the same name. It won an Emmy in 1974 for Best Music Composition. CBS posted the original on its website, so if you want to watch the original Jack Lord Hawaii Five-O episode co-starring James MacArthur as Danny Williams, and guest starring Jay J. Armes as the killer, it is there for your nostalgic trip back to 1973.

Warner Todd Huston

Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago-based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com, BigJournalsim.com and all Breitbart News' other sites, RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, and many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs across the country to discuss his opinion editorials and current events as well as appearing on TV networks such as CNN, Fox News, Fox Business Network, and various Chicago-based news programs.
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